You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
A federal court judge Tuesday approved a settlement that could clear the federal student loan debt held by as many as 36,000 former students who attended a for-profit chain of cosmetology and secretarial programs in the 1980s and ’90s.
The New York Times reported that the last of the programs operated by Wilfred American Educational Corporation closed in 1994 following federal investigations into fraud, racketeering and embezzlement. Several leaders of the for-profit chain were convicted of fraud following those investigations, but students who took out federal loans to attend those programs between 1986 and 1994 have been paying down debt or have seen their wages garnished for decades.
The settlement comes as more than 65,000 borrower-defense claims -- filed mostly by former students of the now defunct Corinthian Colleges -- are pending review by the Department of Education.
